Federal Agents Seize What They Called an Illicit Antiquity Headed for Asia Week

Image

Officials with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations said in a statement that they had confiscated a “second century bodhisattva schist head.”CreditU.S. Immigration and and Customs Enforcement

For the second time in a matter of days, federal agents on Tuesday seized what they described as an illicit antiquity, valued at several hundred thousand dollars, and scheduled to be sold during New York’s Asia Week, a celebration of Asian art that includes museum exhibitions and sales by dealers and auction houses.

Officials with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations said in a statement that they had confiscated a “second century bodhisattva schist head” from the Gandhara civilization and likely looted from a region that is now part of Pakistan.

But they provided few other details about the seizure, including where it had taken place, except to say that the head had been intercepted at a port in the New York area. The statement said that the head was in transit to an “East Coast auction house.”

On Friday, federal agents seized two sculptures from Christie’s in Midtown Manhattan, both of which were characterized as looted and both of which were scheduled to have been sold this week.

Christie’s said it had not known of any problems with the items and that it was cooperating with investigators.

“Investigators have been able to identify that artifacts like this often take very circuitous routes through Asia, where they are entered into the shipping stream at very high volume ports,” the agency said in its statement. “This is often done to help hide the goods. This can make finding a smuggled artifact among thousands of licit shipments kind of like finding a needle in a haystack.”

The statement did not identify what methods the investigators had used to track the seized item, a head that had been once been part of a larger statue.

“It is a common practice for looters to remove just the head of a sculpture in situ because it is easier to smuggle and sell on the black market,” the statement said.

Officials say they have been on the lookout for shipments destined for Asia Week, and that the cargo containing the bodhisattva had “some of the red flags authorities look for,” including false documentation.